This invention relates to an aid for use in cardio-pulmonary resuscitation.
Cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (C.P.R.) has become a widely used and accepted technique for victims of heart failure and can be credited with saving many lives. Very briefly it involves a technique in which hand pressure is applied to the chest of the patient at a location so as to apply direct pressure to the heart to provide a pumping action of the heart when the heart itself is not operating. The whole process also involves periodic inflation of the lungs of the patient so that the patient's heart and lung operations are maintained at a level to avoid damage to vital organs before the patient can be moved to a treatment center and the heart action restored by drugs or other treatment.
It is often necessary in a situation of complete heart failure to maintain the repeated compression strokes on the chest of the patient for a long period of time while the patient is transferred to a treatment center.
A number of problems arise when attempting to maintain the action over a considerable period of time. Firstly the exertion involved by the medical operative can be quite significant leading to sweating of the operative and/or the patient and tiring of the operative. The sweat can then act as a lubricant between the skin on the palm of the hand of the operative and the skin of the patient leading to the hand slipping from the required location. It will of course be appreciated that if the compression stroke is applied at the wrong location then firstly it does not generate the required pumping action of the blood in the heart and secondly it can cause severe damage to the rib bones of the patient. This slipping of the hand of the operative from the required place of course is exacerbated by tiredness.
Secondly it is necessary for the operative to remove their hand from the required location each time the lungs are to be inflated. In practice the compression strokes are applied at a rate of 1 stroke per second over fifteen strokes following which the lungs are inflated using in most cases mouth to mouth resuscitation techniques. It is then necessary for the operative having moved to inflate the lungs to return to the patient's chest and again to locate the required position for the compression strokes.
Thirdly the operative during a compression stroke is required to keep the fingers lifted away from the chest of the patient so that the compression stroke is applied strictly by the palm or forward part of the palm of the operative. This technique should if properly used avoid breaking the rib bones during the forceful compression stroke. However when the operative is tiring, it often occurs that the whole hand rests upon the patient's chest and the compression stroke is applied over a much bigger area thus reducing the effect of the stroke and significantly increasing the danger of damage to the patient's chest.
At the present time it is believed that no equipment is available on the market for assisting in resuscitation techniques of this type. Various complex machines and equipment may be available but these are not suitable for manufacture in large quantities at a cheap price so as to enable the product to be maintained at all sites where it may be necessary to be used.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,355,634 (Kanter) shows a block device which has an adhesive layer for attachment to the chest of the patient. The device is however relatively complex and bulky. While complex depth gauges may be desirable in a hospital setting, they are of no value in a "on the go" situation where a patient is being rapidly transported from a remote location to the hospital.